Tommy Edison: The Blind Film Critic and YouTuber

Tommy Edison is an American YouTuber, public speaker and former radio traffic reporter from Connecticut who has been blind since birth. He is known as the Blind Film Critic, who reviews movies he has never seen, and for The Tommy Edison Experience, a YouTube channel that "uses humor to answer the most popular questions about living without sight" (his channel). On October 31, 2026, YouTube showed about 734,000 subscribers for it. The videos are produced and edited by his friend Ben Churchill.

Below: his sight, his radio years, the Blind Film Critic, the questions he answers on YouTube and braille at school, mostly in his own words. Pages were checked on October 31, 2026.

Key points

• Blind since birth. "They say it's an underdeveloped optic nerve," he said in a 2012 video (his video).
• Radio first. He was the traffic reporter at Star 99.9 (WEZN-FM) in Connecticut from 1994, for 19 years (NBC Connecticut, Easterseals Crossroads, 2015).
• The Blind Film Critic started in April 2011 with Scream 4, and Roger Ebert posted his first two reviews (his site).
• His second channel answers questions about blind life: the ATM, dreams, colors, crying, and how he knows when to stop wiping.
• He grew up with braille. "Everything I did was in braille," he says of his early school years (his video).

Tommy Edison at a glance

Each row is sourced in the sections below.

Who is Tommy Edison?

He describes himself as "born and raised in Connecticut, right outside of Manhattan" (his video). ABC News reported in 2013 that he grew up with three sisters in Greenwich, learned to ride a two-wheeler and went to public school. "It was all I knew," he said of growing up blind (ABC News). Easterseals Crossroads, an assistive technology program, wrote in 2015 that his sisters are all sighted and that he graduated from the University of Bridgeport in music (Easterseals Crossroads, 2015).

His website calls him a "Blind YouTuber, Public Speaker, Blind Film Critic" (his site). It also says Connecticut governor Jodi Rell proclaimed May 21, 2009 "Tommy Edison Day" for his service to the community (his site).

It took him time to talk about blindness in public. He told Easterseals Crossroads he spent years hiding from the world of disability and never told anyone on the radio he was blind. What he learned: "I'm a person who happens to be blind." His aim now, he told ABC News: "I want to show you the world my way."

Was Tommy Edison born blind? What he says about his sight

Since birth. "I'm blind since birth. I was born blind," he says in a 2012 video answering viewers' questions. On the cause: "They say it's an underdeveloped optic nerve," and he doesn't know what else to call it (his video). His site says the same in a 2017 post (his site), and the Guardian wrote in 2014 that he has never been able to see (The Guardian).

Light. His words vary. In 2012 he said, "I used to be able to distinguish between light and dark," but not so much anymore. In a later video quoted by Easterseals Crossroads in 2015, he says, "All I see is light or dark," with no shapes or shadows. More in what do blind people see.

Color. "I've never seen color. I don't have any concept of what it is," he says in a 2012 video. Explaining it to him, he says, is like explaining the sound of the ocean to someone who has never heard, and he knows a stoplight is red only because he was told (his video). Michael Stevens of Vsauce discussed the video in "Is Your Red The Same as My Red?" in 2013 (his site).

Dreams. He doesn't see in his dreams, because "my subconscious doesn't know what it'd be like to see either." His dreams work like his days: "it's all smell, sound, taste and touch" (his video). More in do blind people dream?

How his parents told him. He doesn't remember anyone sitting him down: "It's all I've ever known." Everyone's own life feels normal to them, he says, and "this was my normal" (his video).

From radio DJ to traffic reporter

Radio came first. "I worked at a bunch of stations," he says, playing jazz and then oldies. As a kid listening to DJs, he thought "it sounded like so much fun" (his video). Easterseals Crossroads says his first job was as an overnight DJ at a jazz station in Stamford, Connecticut. "When I started playing records as a DJ, there was absolutely no Braille," he told them. He counted the CDs on the rack and memorized the weather reports and the unlabeled commercials, a "human GPS" in his words (Easterseals Crossroads, 2015).

Traffic reporter. NBC Connecticut reported in 2011 that he had been the traffic reporter at Star 99.9 (WEZN-FM) since 1994 (NBC Connecticut). His site places the station in Milford, Connecticut, where he was on a weekday morning show with Tad Lemire (his site). Easterseals Crossroads says he did the job for 19 years, with days that started at 3:15 a.m. How could he report traffic without driving? He told NBC Los Angeles: "There's nothing to see in my job. It's all about listening" (NBC Los Angeles). More on work in jobs for blind people.

The Blind Film Critic

How it started. "I love film. I've always been a film guy," he said in a 2011 radio interview quoted by NBC Connecticut. He had complained to Ben Churchill that movies resolve their stories "with everything but words" (Easterseals Crossroads, 2015), and he wanted to "review movies from a blind person's perspective" (The Guardian).

The first review. In April 2011 he reviewed Scream 4 after a midnight showing: "I have no idea what happened the last 20 minutes of this movie." His verdict: "Blind people, stay home" (NBC Connecticut). He gave it "2 out of 4 eyes open!" (his site). The top score is a joke: four eyes, a sighted person with glasses (Easterseals Crossroads, 2015). That month, Roger Ebert posted Edison's first two reviews, Scream 4 and Water for Elephants, on his Chicago Sun-Times blog (his site).

How he watches. "I watch a movie for the writing and acting," he says, and he is not "distracted by all the beautiful shots" (his site). He signs off with "Thanks for watching, show-offs!" (ABC News).

No audio description. For his reviews he skips the narrated track that describes the screen: "I'd rather try to figure it out by myself." Audio description did let him follow his first silent film in 2013. "It was really eye-opening," he joked (The Guardian). More in audio description.

Favorites. Hugo and Goodfellas, he told the Guardian, and Goodfellas again in 2017 (WKAR).

Don't Breathe. In 2016 his videos were used as research for the blind lead in the thriller Don't Breathe, and he interviewed its director, Fede Alvarez, and the cast (his site). His review of it, from August 2016, is the newest on the Blind Film Critic channel, which showed about 43,200 subscribers on October 31, 2026 (Blind Film Critic channel).

The Tommy Edison Experience: the questions he answers

Reviews led to questions: viewers "started leaving comments wanting to learn more about me," he told Easterseals Crossroads. The first answer was a video of him at an ATM, and The Tommy Edison Experience launched in October 2011. That year, Easterseals Crossroads reported that an ATM could take him more than ten minutes, with headphones for the voice prompts (Easterseals Crossroads).

A selection of the videos on his site, with the year each was posted:

Wiping. He calls it "a question I get asked more than any other." His answer starts with a twist: nobody asks how he knows when to stop wiping his face after a donut. If he spills a drink, he works out where it went, uses ten or twelve paper towels if needed, and finds any sticky spot he missed later (his video). More everyday questions are in how do blind people do everyday things.

Born blind or blind later. In 2017 he and Christine Ha, the MasterChef season 3 winner, who became blind later in life, answered the same questions about dreaming, eye surgery and more (his site). Her story is in Christine Ha.

Elsewhere. His site lists appearances on Vsauce's Mind Field (posted in 2017) and Comedy Central's Tosh.0 (posted in 2018), and in 2019 he announced The Tommy Edison Experience Podcast (his site). He is still posting: his site's newest video, from March 19, 2026, is "Blind Person Tries The Tablecloth Challenge," and monthly collections of short videos run through September 2026 (his site).

Does Tommy Edison read braille?

Braille: yes, in his own words. In a 2017 video about school, he says that in his early years "everything I did was in braille": braille books, storybooks, braille everything (his video).

Grade school. He went to Cos Cob School, a public school in Greenwich, through sixth grade. The school wanted him in a separate "special class." His mother insisted "his cognitive skills are fine, he just can't see," and he joined the regular class. From third or fourth grade, a braille teacher came in almost every day and printed over his braille work so his teacher could grade it; Easterseals Crossroads tells it too (Easterseals Crossroads, 2015). A mobility instructor taught him cane travel (orientation and mobility specialist, the white cane).

Later grades. His Perkins Brailler was too noisy for notes in class, so he tried to remember things instead. In 10th grade he moved to the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, with no braille books and no one to transcribe his work, so he typed his assignments on a typewriter. "I was the only blind person I knew throughout my entire education career," he says. His advice to teachers: "treat them as normally as possible." To blind students: "Use your voice" (his video). More in a blind student in the classroom.

The Perkins Brailler on video. In 2012 he showed "the old Perkins Brailler" he got in sixth or seventh grade. Its six keys match the six dots of the braille cell: dot 1 alone is "a", dots 1 and 2 are "b", dots 1 and 4 are "c". He also shows the number sign and the capital sign (his video). More in the Perkins Brailler and how to write braille.

He also made Do Restaurants Have Braille Menus? (2012), calling ten restaurants to ask, and How Blind People Find Braille Signs (2016). See also braille menus and braille signs.

Tommy Edison's timeline

Where Braillito fits

Braillito, our app, teaches braille. It teaches the braille cells in lessons with exercises you play, with lives, levels and a daily streak: 59 lessons in 8 worlds in English. It also has a translator, a dictionary and a cell builder. The English lessons are uncontracted braille (grade 1); they don't teach contracted braille or transcription, and Braillito isn't a braille transcriber.

Nothing here means Tommy Edison uses or endorses Braillito. If his Perkins Brailler video makes you want to learn braille yourself, the six-dot cell he explains is where it starts. The translator on braillito.com shows how a word or short phrase looks in UEB, but it only applies the rules a program can apply, so it doesn't replace a transcriber. Without paying, the braille translator works in any browser.

Braillito is a subscription with no free version; depending on the plan, it starts with a free trial or a discounted first period, if it's your first subscription (is Braillito free?). Get Braillito.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tommy Edison really blind?

Yes, since birth, and he says he has never seen color. On light, his words vary: in 2012 he said he used to tell light from dark, but not so much anymore; a 2015 article quotes him saying all he sees is light or dark (his video, Easterseals Crossroads, 2015). See what do blind people see.

What caused Tommy Edison's blindness?

In his words: "They say it's an underdeveloped optic nerve." His site says the same, and the Guardian calls it an "undeveloped" optic nerve. He has not said more, and neither do we.

How does Tommy Edison review movies if he can't see them?

He listens for the story, the writing, the acting and the sound, without audio description, and says what he could follow and what he couldn't. He rates films in eyes open, out of four (his site, The Guardian).

Does Tommy Edison still make videos?

Yes. His site lists a video from March 2026 and monthly collections of short videos through September 2026; his newest movie review is from August 2016 (his site). More blind people who share their lives in public are in famous blind people.